State to release limited report cards

Because of data scandal, grades and other info will be omitted

Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus City Schools employees -- and perhaps others in schools throughout the state -- are accused of falsifying students' records to improve their schools' standing on state report cards. Read the complete series.

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They’ll be stripped-down versions missing overall ratings, attendance rates and a performance
index score. They will be in an electronic spreadsheet form instead of the usual attractive,
formatted document so that no one is confused: These are
not the official state report cards.

The State Board of Education voted unanimously yesterday to release the skinny report-card
version because an investigation into whether schools manipulated attendance data has cast doubt on
whether schools’ information is accurate. The attendance data are at the heart of the
investigation, but altering attendance records affects other portions of the report-card
calculation, including school and district ratings.

A final version, grades and all, won’t be released until the investigation is finished and the
Ohio Department of Education can issue report cards it knows are right. Report cards were scheduled
to be released on Aug. 29. Never before have they been delayed, much less put on hold because the
information they include might have been falsified.

“We don’t know what data may or may not be impacted pending the investigation,” said acting
state Superintendent Michael Sawyers.

Most state board members agreed that releasing the full report cards, and then perhaps later
lowering some schools’ grades if they’re found to have manipulated their data, would be too
confusing.

“I don’t want to create the myth and then have to go back in time and say, no (the rating wasn’t
right),” said member C. Todd Jones, who lives in New Albany. “(The spreadsheet) conveys to the
public, ‘This is not official; this is not done.’ ”

State Auditor Dave Yost is investigating schools across the state to determine whether they
manipulated data. He said he’s found many ways in which schools have done so, though Yost said a
majority of schools don’t appear to be engaging in questionable practices. Some schools have
withdrawn and then re-enrolled students who had not actually left. That causes the students to be
excluded from test-passage rates, attendance rates and other calculations because they weren’t
enrolled for enough of the school year.

A handful of board members said that the state should go ahead and release the full grade cards,
but with a disclaimer.

“The public is used to getting them. They’re aware of the problem,” said member Jeff Hardin of
Milford.

Member Rob Hovis, from Millersburg, said he doesn’t see the difference between releasing a
spreadsheet with data and printing the full report card. Telling the public that there’s a
spreadsheet with some data but to expect a second, full report card later is confusing, he
said.

A full report card could be a long time coming. Yost told the board on Monday that his
investigation is increasingly complex and time-consuming; it might not be completed until after the
first of the year, he said.